From Thoroughbred Owners of California
ARCADIA, Calif. (Mar. 29, 2020) — Per our email Friday, we continue to work with Stronach Group and CTT to persuade the LA County Department of Health to rescind its order prohibiting live racing at Santa Anita. Many of you have inquired about who you can contact to support these efforts. The Department of Health reports to the LA Board of Supervisors, and the Supervisor and current Chair for the Fifth District which includes Arcadia is Kathryn Barger. You can contact her at Kathryn@bos.lacounty.gov.
We believe emails will be most effective if they are concise and respectful. The major themes Stronach Group, TOC and CTT have been emphasizing are:
- Allowing the continuation of live racing does not present a health risk to the 1000 + workers on the backstretch who live in dormitories at the track and must be at the track every day to support live training of 1700 horses every day.
- Daily training for these horses has already been determined to be an “essential activity” as required animal care and exercise.
- The revenue generated from continued live racing at Santa Anita is critical for the Thoroughbred ecosystem to keep these backstretch workers employed. If there is a prolonged period of no racing many of these jobs will certainly be eliminated and up to 1000 people could be added to the current LA homeless problem.
- We urge the county to send their inspectors to the Track to witness firsthand the safety precautions in place.
- What we are seeking is not extreme or without precedent. All other counties in California where live racing is conducted have accepted these arguments and are allowing live racing to continue under the strict safety precautions that we also have at Santa Anita.